Archive for the ‘ Mental ’ Category

If you golf…it’s happened to you. It’s happened to me…it happens to the best golfers. That really bad round where you seriously start thinking you should give up the game. Now, we’re talking about those rounds that are significantly worse than you usually do.

I have to laugh at myself because, well, frankly, I had to choose to look at it that way if I wanted to overcome it.

In this video and another, I’m going to assist you to eliminating any negative effects from such a round.
Resilience, or, bouncing back…is 50% of mental toughness.

Perceptions…

One great thing about golf is that even when you play horribly, there’s much good that can come of it. Watch and learn. Look for Part 2 after this one.

greens and fairways,
Craig

Transcript

Title: Getting Over A Really Bad Round – part 1

I had one of the worst rounds in years the other day and it inspired me to do this video.

It was so bad it was actually comical. How is it that I can play a dozen rounds in a row where I feel like I can place a drive 260 yards out there on the fairway, at will, and then play this latest round and feel like this same driver is literally broken?

Well, I’m not going to try to explain it, in fact, I think that’s a waste of time. In these videos I’m going to tell you what to do about it when it happens…because guess what…it happens. And it happens to everyone, including the greatest in the world. (show clips – do Youtube search of “bad golf shots by pros” )

Did you hear about Kevin Na scoring a 16, the worst ever on a par 4?
(clip from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWTXoNzuk8c)

For starters, I’m thinking that makes you feel a little bit better like it does for me. That’s step 1, the beginning of the healing right there. Go watch videos of pro golfers screwing up. Type in Youtube: Worst Golf Shots

Going backwards, Here’s what you do when this first happens on the course.

During the round, when you know you’ve lost it. Why not just stop trying, start laughing, and have some fun? That’s what I did about the 8th hole when my scorecard was shot. Try some crazy shots. Go for tight pins. Swing as hard as you can.

I basically threw the scorecard away, hailed the cart girl for a beer, and just had fun! (show me with beer)

Now, here’s the ironic part…you know what I’m going to say don’t you? Yep, right after I did that, I started having some good shots. I loosened WAYYYY up. I didn’t finish strong enough to end up with a good score but I did continue to play with the INTENTION of remembering how to play loose to ingrain in my memory banks this feeling. Playing loose and free!

THAT is what I wanted to remember from this round. That’s my useful takeaway.

Go on to part 2 to find out how to delete the experience from your memory banks and get back to playing the way you know how.

Everywhere you turn, some instructor is talking about visualization for golf. You hear them tell golfers things like: While you’re doing your preshot routine…see the ball taking the flight path directly to the target you picked…or…see the line of travel on the putting green you think the ball will take on this break. Etc. Etc.

Well, I’ve got great news for some golfers. All of this standard advice that is repeated to golfers without the slightest thought to it’s effectiveness can actually HURT a golfer’s game. In this video, I am going to free you up from the shackles of this typical advice.

Always remember, if you haven’t gotten the message from me yet, that YOU ARE UNIQUE. Just because something works for one golfer, doesn’t it mean it works for you. Watch this video to “see” what I mean….(or just listen to the audio and it “works” just the same). Notice how solid this concept is….

Greens and fairways,
Craig

Transcript

Title:

Visualization in golf is WAY overrated. Yep, more heresy for the golf establishment.
You hear it from every golf instructor – “You must visualize your shot or putt” before you take it. Jack Nicklaus wrote: (show this in text next to pic of Jack Nicklaus. Find an old picture of when he was younger) “I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head.” Visualize, visualize, visualize…I’m really tired of hearing that word. Did you know that about 20% of the population is not visual? What are they supposed to do? If you give a golfer who isn’t very visual that advice then all you’ll do is confuse him or her and hurt their game.

I used to buy into this whole “visualization” thing until I watched this interview of Tiger Woods:

(Tiger Woods interview)

And now having worked with over a 1000 clients in person and thousands more online, I’ve come to realize that you don’t need to visualize anything in order to be great. Tiger proved that.
Ding!
So here’s the truth about visualization for golf…
When I work with any golfer or other athlete, I never use the word “visualize” …instead, tell them to “think, imagine, or pretend”

This is a huge breakthrough for some people. My point for you is to do it YOUR WAY and if you’re not very visual, like Tiger, it’s no problem at all.
Some of us, like me, are more auditory, meaning, words, voice, and sounds are more powerful than visions.
Others are more FEEL and touch oriented like Tiger.
If you can use all three modalities, great! Unless you know that you are really visual, then drop the word and do it your way…and you will be doing it correctly and it will help you lower your golf score! What I do is to replay my best shots from the past, in my head and body, right before I take my shot or putt. And…I do it MY WAY! YOUR WAY works for YOU!

It isn’t too often that I have such “universal” tips that I think can help everyone. Most golf advice needs to be taken with a grain of salt and decided by the golfer if it’s going to work.
I think you will agree with me on this video, but more importantly, will you do it.
Click the video below to see what I mean

The One Best Golf Tip Of All Time

Transcript

Do you want to score lower? No really, I mean it because I’ve got a strategy here in this 2-minute video that if you adopt it in your game, your scores WILL go down and you will probably agree with me that it’s true when you hear it. The issue though, is that very few golfers will actually do this even though it’s so easy and here it is:

Every round that you go out there and play, dedicate that round to working on ONE thing that will make the biggest difference in your game. Did you hear me…ONE item that if you ingrain it, will really contribute to your consistency. Most golfers are just flat out, overwhelmed with advice and tips and tactics and all it does is cause tension and ruin their swing.

Instead, as you walk the fairway when you have time for spare thoughts, think about that one thing. When you’re going through your preshot routine with all your focus, bring in that one thing.

This is not only going to help you adopt that one thing into your body’s intelligence, but it will crowd out all of those negative thoughts and voices you normally have running around in your head.

Here’s some ideas to get you started on the ONE thing that can really make a difference for you. How about:

Rythm and tempo
Accept every shot as it is
Play in the present moment, one shot at a time
Target-focused
Easy, calm, and fluid
Smooth
Slow backswing
Solid foundation
Swing or play within yourself

Are you getting the picture here? We’ve heard all of these types of tips and tactics before, magazines and books are filled with them, but how often do we actually give any attention to any of them out on the course? Very little, I know. If you actually want to lower your scores, take a longer-term approach and work on ONE THING AT A TIME. Think of yourself like the stock market…on any given day you could be up or down but over the long haul, always getting better.
Your swing is good enough.

How many times have you gotten angry when finding your ball in a bad lie or in the trees?

Does the anger help you to get out of that rough spot? For most people, it doesn’t. You’ve got remain calm, cool, and confident that your next shot is going to be so brilliant that it makes up for the mistake.

So the solution seems to be to stop being angry about hitting bad shots, right?

Easier said than done you’re probably responding….and I get that.

In the distant past, I threw a few clubs…yep, its true and I’m ashamed to admit it but, it’s a fact. And, I carried my anger with me for a few holes past the one I choked on.

Well, what if you truly didn’t get upset over a bad lie in the bushes? Wouldn’t that increase your odds of being able to get it out of there with a beautiful next shot?

Watch this short video to find out how:

Transcript

Look at this video behind me here. This is my playing partner and he just hit his shot into the brush missing the green by 30 yards on an approach shot. We actually had a bet riding on this round and of course, like you would expect, he was quite angry with himself for hitting such a bad shot. I decided to videotape it and now just watch the shot he makes.

He ends up putting it 10 ft from the hole, he putts it in and makes par. This ends up being one of the greatest shots of his golf career so far. We still talk about it today.

Think about this for a minute… What if he would have put the ball on the green with his approach and made a 10 foot shot for birdie? Would he remember it today? No, he’s had plenty of birdies in his life and this wouldn’t have been memorable at all. It would have basically disappeared in his mind.

As it was, this became one of his most favorite shots and it burned a sense of “I can make anything” into a part of his brain that he can use for future tough shots.

But even better than that….What if we were to look at all of our difficult shots as opportunities to get this kind of benefit? What if you were to take it a step further and when you do end up in the trees or in a bad spot, you actually look forward to the challenge of creating one of these moments? THIS is the true joy of golf, creating these moments and should be your reason for playing the game!

Well if you did look at tough lies that way, What would happen is that you would dramatically reduce the number one cause of bad shots…tension caused by fear of missing! And you would actually end up making less mistakes as a result.

Don’t you already have a few great saves like this stored in your memory banks that can do this for you? Play your next round dedicating yourself to this attitude and see how being fearless translates into a smoother swing and more greens and fairways.